KEITH BRADSHER, The New York Times, reports:

Chickens in North Korea are suffering from a rare outbreak of H7 avian influenza, and not the more lethal H5N1 strain that has infected poultry across Southeast Asia, a United Nations official said. The H7 virus showed a greater capacity for human-to-human transmission during an outbreak in 2003 in the Netherlands but tended to produce less serious illness, often limited to conjunctivitis. The presence of the disease in northeast Asia is surprising, the official said, adding that no human cases had been found in North Korea. Keith Bradsher (NYT)